tbaroundtheworld

It's always great to be back, despite the slog it takes to get here. This trip was particularly mundane, despite the length and the 24 hours of awakedness it required to complete it. On the plane I was lucky enough to have an empty seat between me and the other person in the row. Sadly she was a space-hog who assumed the gap was for her personal use and filled it with computers, blankets, reading glasses, other stuff and a 1/2 full glass of water. Did have one little traveling oddity though. When I left two Saturdays ago I sat across from a couple on the ABQ to SFO run. They were well-dressed and of an age, the kind of people I might hang out with in real life. Sitting in the SFO waiting area and munching on a turkey-avocado sandwich on a chewy croissant, I looked up and there they were, sitting across from me. We boarded the plane and once again, they had the row opposite. This being too serendipitous, I excused myself and told the man the situation. He said he recognized me but t...

Today’s title is derived from a dare. One of my fellow travelers challenged me to name a post as such and I said I would – so here it is. Translated it means “My hamburger is very good.” It's a funny play on words we toss around here and we thought perhaps that might be a great title for a Dr. Seuss book. Had a day of work today and capped it with a journey down the subway to a part of Shanghai that was beyond our regular horizon. The goals were the Shanghai Botanical Garden and the Longhua Temple complex. Things began inauspiciously when the subway token machine wouldn’t take a bill and we lacked the change. This meant a trip to the window. This is normally hit or miss. If the teller has a little English you can get away with saying the line and the zone and they’ll deal you a ticket. But this one wasn’t having it. She waved us off. Until I spit out “huo che zahn”, “train station” and she understood that we wanted a ticket for the end of the line. So off we went. Exiting at Soncha...

I’ve come a long way in my short time in (and out) of China. A year ago on my first trip I stepped out of the security of the hotel and across the street to walk in the park. I recall being very worried about taking my camera and every shot I took was with flash off and from the palm of my hand. I didn’t want to attract attention. The exercising people, particularly the “yellers” made me very tense and my greatest fear was that I would somehow offend someone and end up in a situation with them and the local policeman yelling at me in a language that I barely understood. A few days later after grossly overpaying for a pair of binoculars at the knock-off market, I practiced the words to tell the policeman that I was going to watch birds. I asked the concierge about watching birds over there and he told me it wasn’t a good idea. Ignoring that, I proudly walked up to to the guard in the park and rattled off my plans in Chinese. He waved me off as just another member of the class of the men...

Pretty regular day today. Had a walk in the park that was uneventful aside from Strauss’ Viennese Waltz that was broadcasting from the speakers along the path and a woman that was doing a combination of a sea shanty jig and a clog dance. The park is always a great source of oddities, even on a regular day. I made it a point to walk past the caged birds and saw The Man in Black with whom I had had a brief conversation last week. He recognized me and I said, “zao shang hao” and he walked over to his Bulbul cage with me. We stopped and listened and I once again tried to tell him the bird’s song was beautiful (having expanded my vocabulary) and he smiled and said who knows what and thus we parted ways. At least he was smiling. An uneventful day at work punctuated by a hot bowl of barbequed pork Ramen and a Mango tea from Starbucks. After work, Matt and I decided to head down town to the Big Bamboo Bar (having visited the Little Bamboo Bar last December) and so off we went. Nothing novel ca...

Yesterday was a day for me to get out in the streets and do a marathon walk. I took a look at the map and aligned on three targets that formed a big triangle with the base at the far end, away from the hotel. At the bottom was a garden, located down in the French Concession. At the top, Jing'an Temple, a medium sized complex in the heart of the shopping district (ironically.) Between the two – Zhongshan Park, a city green space that I have had on my list for some time. The map suggested about 10 miles total, and I figured it was a reasonable amount with an ambling gait. So I packed my camera, GPS, an orange and a piece of chocolate and headed out the door at 8:30 following a breakfast in the penthouse. The rest of the traveling team was heading out for pearls and knock-offs so I was on my own. My route took me along Ya’an Xilu Elevated Road and since I was under it, it quickly became obvious that the GPS was going to be partially useless. “Weak Satellite Signal” was the first messa...

The saying goes - " In heaven there is paradise. On earth there are Suzhou and Hangzhou ." I think it's true, now that I have made it to both. Recall our trip to Huxi and Hangzhou last fall, this trip to Suzhou closes the chapter. Suzhou is one of the many "water towns" that exist here on the Yangtze flood plain. These little cities are criss-crossed with many canals and are often called the Venice of China for the obvious reason. For some reason, they just appeal to me - I like the architecture and I get a peaceful feeling staring down the waterways. We arranged for a van to collect us at 8AM and the driver, Mr. Wu was there promptly. I introduced myself in Mandarin, as he spoke no English. That was the start of a wonderful day me exercising my linguistic prowess and probably making a complete fool of myself in turn. Mr. Wu though turned out to be one of those wonderful characters we chance upon in life and come away richer for the experience. The drive to Suzh...

Our first stop of the day was at the Humble Administrator’s Garden, Suzhou’s largest and purportedly most elegant. The garden is so named as it belonged to one Wang Xianchen who acquired it for use following his retirement from his official duties as a government bureaucrat. He designed the garden and began its construction in 1509. Not much of the original remains, it having changed many times during its long life. But today it remains a very beautiful place. Unfortunately for us, it was wildly crowded and times we were reduced to taking shuffling steps while encase in an unyielding cocoon of people. Many, many tour groups were there, each with their own unique baseball caps and flag waving handlers. I won’t say that it detracted from the beauty, but it makes it difficult to stop and ponder the beauty. And the place was quite beautiful. The buildings were arrayed around a lake with small streams running between them. One lake and its associated pavilion formed a foreground for the gre...

I love Buddhist temples. I love the ochre paint, the smell of the incense, the chanting of the monks and the ringing of the bells. The architecture and the Buddhas are simply wonderful to look at. But best of all, I love wandering around and feeling the unearthly sense they impart. On a horrible day you could sit in the temple and let the world wash away. Hanshan Temple was first built on the spot in 502 AD during the Liang Dynasty. None of those building survive and what is there today harkens from the Qing. This temple is not like the small one I visited last year in Chongming. This one caters to throngs of tourists and does not impart the same sense of reverence as its rural cousin. This is not to say that it isn’t a wonderful place – it was. It was different. There were many buildings and many Buddhas. Like the Chinese I elected to stop and do the prayer ritual in front of each one, an act that inspired some surprise and affiliation among the other supplicants. It’s simply a nice t...